Monday, July 12, 2010

Fashion Victim Tutorial: How To Make An Annoying, Painfully Trendy T-Shirt Design

Gather 'round, kiddies, because I'm going to help you strike it rich! I've been meaning to devise this tutorial for well over a year, and I'm distressed that it's still valid.

OK, you want to make an irritating t-shirt? First of all, it has to feature wings (THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL) and really should include a skull. Let's start with a pair of wings; it doesn't matter where you steal get them:

Why are the wings such a requirement? I have no idea. Don't question me! Basically, the overall vibe you want is caduceus meets tattoo design + random crap. Like I said, a skull is optional but why take the chance of not including one? Look, Alexander McQueen died for you, OK? Place your skull:

Next, you need to add some sort of element reminiscent of Rococo tracery or shapes found in fleur de lis motifs (resist the urge to use pseudo-Maori "tribal" elements; the 90s are over). I'm just going to dump in a simple example of the latter:

Now you need some more-or-less random crap in the background. I strongly urge you to use old-fashioned handwriting:

DO NOT pay any attention to what the handwriting says, because madness awaits down that road. OK, it's time for some color. Stick to grayed-down colors, burgundies, mustard yellows, dull greens, burnt oranges, etc:

OPTIONAL: why not use some metallic ink? It'll look like absolute shit after only one washing! OK, now we're ready for the shirt itself. It should be either black, burgundy, or dull army green. Think drab:

Now it's time to place your design. Here is a crucial point: even though you've just made a symmetrical work of "art," DO NOT place it in the center of the shirt. Make it look like the garment was just tossed haphazardly under the screens:

Not shown above, but crucial nonetheless: sandpaper your silkscreens a little to give them a totally phony "distressed" look.

Last step: contact the buyer at Nordstrom Rack.

Obviously, these are all suggestions (BUT NOT THE WINGS! THEY ARE REQUIRED!), and this is a highly-simplified example (not nearly enough random crap) but I'm sure you'll agree that the tutorial above will help you make a t-shirt so trendy, so incoherent and badly-considered, that you will be rolling in money in no time.

You're welcome.

UPDATE: After completing the above from memory, I thought I'd check Urban Outfitters to see if I could find a good example, and was astonished to find this meta-ironic version:

I swear I didn't see that before writing the tutorial. Points off for symmetrical placement, though.

UPDATE: I also didn't previously see this obnoxious Ecko design, which includes every single motif suggested above:

32 comments:

Great stuff. In the punk rock days, circa late '70's a friend discovered a screen print shop in Detroit that sold shirts that had been used for test prints. They really did have designs printed as though the shirt was thrown under the screen at random. They also had several different unrelated designs printed on them. They cost around a dollar each. We bought a bunch of them. We refused to tell where we found them It was our little secret. Now that you mention it, one of them did have a skull with a lot of random crap but no wings.

Is there a name in the trade for these shit-tastic designs? I would love to know what they are "officially" called. All I know is I see them everywhere and they are so ugly and so OVER I would not be surprised if I started seeing them in pairs on vacationing elderly couples from the midwest. Who bought them on sale from a truck-stop while on an RV road trip.

On second thought, I think I HAVE seen them on vacationing elderly couples from the midwest. And Eastern European male tourists on Hollywood Boulevard.

Good lord! I really don't get out enough any more! My contact with sullen youth exploited by textile capitalists has severely diminished over the last decade. I had no idea... but obviously many others do! Psychic spies have have already stolen your designs even before you made them! Always remember to spray some Espernot® in the sir after having really bad ideas lest they become stolen by the psychic minions of venture capitalists eager to make their millions the E-Z way by stealing your ideas!

Anonymous, you are certainly right that this trend is really long in the tooth, or as Aunt Snow said above, "SO OVER." However, they're still clogging up the shops and I'm still seeing them every day, so evidence suggests that they are still, in fact, trendy. If you want further evidence, just look at the t-shirt displays at Nordstrom Rack: still as wingtastic as ever.

The meta-ironic version at Urban Outfitters shows, however, that this trend is just about over, so use the tutorial and cash in quickly!

I realize that the decision belongs to the blog owner alone, but this deserves to be a Greatest Hit or Glitteriest Moment. Comparing it to the Condi Photoshop Tutorial from five years ago, this is clearly the work of an evolved and confident artist.

UPDATE: My dad loves him some garage sales. This morning we had breakfast and he was wearing a baseball cap he picked up at a garage sale with a winged logo, fleur de lis and hard to read text asymmetrically placed on the front of the cap.

Maybe if 80 year old guys wear this, the young people will stop thinking it's cool. Here's hoping.

I'm a little puzzled: I was under the impression that the skull was mandatory, but the wings only strongly recommended.

I went shopping for children's shoes recently. They were all strongly gendered. All the girls' shoes included a lot of pink; almost all the boys' shoes had skulls. So did some of the socks; and, naturally, almost all the tee-shirts elsewhere. Also, most of the skulls were accompanied by daggers or revolvers.

You know, how creepy this is?I read your post yesterday and THAT evening in the train home, i see this guy in train. tshirt in a light beige, SKULL at about his left shoulder, beneath it the outline of a gothicy cross, some handwriting text going across from shoulder to shoulderand on the backside of the shirt? DIESELPUNK WINGS

This is hilarious and so true! I can't tell you how many times we get emailed by a "new line of clothing" containing this same crap! Now with the explosion of MMA, we are receiving the same designs but with titles like, "Ass Kicker," "Knuckle UP," "No Mercy" BLAH BLAH BLAH. Somebody do something original please!